Date received: 22 October 2019
Signatories received: 2464
Name of petitioner: Cllr J Salt
Petition response:
I refer to the petition, signed by local residents regarding funding for the Staffordshire Residential Special Schools. I can advise you that receipt of the petition will be reported to Cllr Mark Sutton, Cabinet Member for Children and Young People.
Staffordshire County Council currently has a contract with the five residential schools in Staffordshire to fund residential education provision. The residential provision is provided to a number of children who attend the schools.
Staffordshire County Council, like many local authorities across the country, faces a significant financial challenge. There are many more children who need our support and we have less money than in the past. As such, we have looked carefully at what we can and what we cannot afford to fund in the future.
Residential education provision is not a service that we are legally required to provide, but we know that it is valued by the children, young people and the families who access it. We have been thinking carefully about the future of this service. Over the next few months we will be working with special schools in Staffordshire to develop a special school strategy for the county. We will consider the residential provision the school provides as part of this work.
The residential provision will continue to be funded while this review is taking place. Thank you for sharing the petition and raising with the Council the concerns felt about funding of the special school residential provision.